The Junior Classics, Volume 5: Stories that never grow old
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The Junior Classics, Volume 5: Stories that never grow old
Children's literature
As for my wall, made, as before, with long stakes or piles, those
piles grew all like trees, and were by this time grown so big, and
spread so very much, that there was not the least appearance, to
any one's view, of any habitation behind them.
Near this dwelling of mine, but a little farther within the land,
and upon lower ground, lay my two pieces of corn land, which I
kept duly cultivated and sowed, and which duly yielded me their
harvest in its season; and whenever I had occasion for more corn,
I had more land adjoining as fit as that.
Besides this, I had my country-seat, and I had now a tolerable
plantation there also; for, first, I had my little bower as I
called it, which I kept in repair--that is to say, I kept the
hedge which encircled it in constantly fitted up to its usual
height, the ladder standing always in the inside. I kept the
trees, which at first were no more than stakes, but were now grown
very firm and tall, always cut, so that they might spread and
grow thick and wild, and make the more agreeable shade, which they
did effectually to my mind. In the middle of this I had my tent
always standing, being a piece of a sail spread over poles, set up
for that purpose, and which never wanted any repair or renewing;
and under this I had made me a squab or couch with the skins of
the creatures I had killed, and with other soft things, and a
blanket laid on them, such as belonged to our sea-bedding, which I
had saved; and a great watch-coat to cover me. And there, whenever
I had occasion to be absent from my chief seat, I took up my
country habitation.
Adjoining to this I had my enclosures for my cattle, that is to
say my goats, and I had taken an inconceivable deal of pains to
fence and enclose this ground. I was so anxious to see it kept
entire, lest the goats should break through, that I never left off
till, with infinite labor, I had stuck the outside of the hedge so
full of small stakes, and so near to one another, that it was
rather a pale than a hedge, and there was scarce room to put a
hand through between them; which afterwards, when those stakes
grew, as they all did in the next rainy season, made the enclosure
strong like a wall, indeed stronger than any wall.
This will testify for me that I was not idle, and that I spared no
pains to bring to pass whatever appeared necessary for my
comfortable support, for I considered the keeping up a breed of
tame creatures thus at my hand would be a living magazine of
flesh, milk, butter, and cheese for me as long as I lived in the
place, if it were to be forty years; and that keeping them in my
reach depended entirely upon my perfecting my enclosures to such a
degree that I might be sure of keeping them together; which by
this method, indeed, I so effectually secured that, when these
little stakes began to grow, I had planted them so very thick that
I was forced to pull some of them up again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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